Lorenzo Villoresi - Iperborea

What is your favorite kind of snow? Mine is no snow at all. :) But if I have to chose I´ll take that kind of dry, powdery snow that tends to fall in colder weather. As a kid I should have chosen the wet kind of snow that you can use for building stuff with (sorry but I couldn´t find the english word for it, I don´t think it´s hugsnow???) as snowmans or snow fortresses. I never was much interested in throwing snowballs though. A rumer at our school said that a somewhat older boy was hit in his eye with a snowball and become blind. But when it was snowball fight I helped out by making snow balls for our team at least.

As I´m born and raised just a about 100 km south of north polarcircle you can trust me when I say I have some certain sense of snow. Different types of snow smells in different way. Snow mixed with rain has a slightly mineral/matellic scent. Wet snow on the other hand smells a little more wooly, like wet sheeps in distance. Fine, powdery snow has a scent that reminds a little of fabric, some close woven cotton or linen. lorenzo Villoresi´s new fragrance Iperborea manage to capture that scent remarkable well.

To be honest, I´m not sure if Iperborea really smells like powdery snow, or if it´s just manage to capture that feeling. As I can recall, powdery snow don´t really smells of citrusfruits, delicate flowers or vanilla, while Iperborea does.

I´ve tried all the fragrances from lorenzo Villoresi, and Iperborea manage without a problem to become one of my favorites from the line. In different from many other offerings from Villoresi, Iperborea is a subtle, soft and discrete kind of scent. It seem like Villoresi has a soft spot for snow and Nordic inspiration in his perffume making as his Teint de Neige means the color of snow, while Hyperborea (Iperborea) according to greek mythology is a land north of the Nordic wind that was said to have a most enjoyable climate despite it´s placement. For me that comes from almost north of the nordic wind Iperborea feels like a more trustworthy interpretion of snow then teint de Neige which mostly smells like huge amounts of old fashioned cosmetic powder (still, I like it and when I feel for a really powdery scent, that´s a favorite).

Iperborea is cristal clear, cold but with surprisingly warm elements, citrus soft and a weav of delicate flowers so seamlessly blended that it´s hard to tell any single flowers apart. The opening is pure and refreshingly fruity, not only citrus as I detect a really nice pear note also.

But it´s in the heart of the fragrance Iperborea remind most about powdery snow, actually as much as I feel like going out and make snow angels, but the snow right now isn´t at all snowangel snow. Iperborea is absolute worth testing, it´s really great if you think you would like a fragrance reminding of priestine powdery snow and the most delicate flowers. Very pure, very different and very beautiful. Not so hefty sillage, but goos lasting power. One of the most genuin fragrances in the "flowers in snow" genre.

Pic: reser.se

Perfume and children.

According to me there isn´t anything that smells as good as babies. A copple of days ago we where babysitting our youngest grandson. Just to sit with him in my lap and smell on his little baby hair is pure bliss. Usually I try to avoid stronger fragrances when I´m around babies, something my husband don´t seem to worry about. So when it was time to feed the little one after he had sit with his grand pa for a while I noticed he smelled of Black Aoud! And belive me, he smells much better without. Black Aoud is heavenly on my husband, but not on babies.

One of my readers asked for my opinions about children and perfume. And that is something worth thinking about. in some countries is totally OK and even quite common to perfume one´s babies. I don´t really understand why, because I´m almsot certain that even Italian, French or Latin mothers also think their babies smells best in the whole world. Usually the fragarnces used for infants are alcoholfree and with really soft notes like camomille, talc and vanilla, but still. I wouldn´t have dreamed about to perfume my kids when they where babies. What do you think? Readers that have kids, have you ever put on your infant (younger then 1 year) perfume or perfume body products to make your baby smell more? If you come from a culture where it´s more common and even expected to perfume babies, what do you think about that tradition?

I´m aware that Sweden don´t have much of a perfume culture at all. In a country where most of the grown up populkation don´t want to smell anything but clean it´s out of the question to start perfuming infants. But, why it is considered worse then to put a bow in a small baby girls tiny curls? Or a bowtie under the many cheeks of a little baby boy?

When is it OK to put perfume on kids? Small children from the age around 3 is usually very curious about anything adults do, and they copy adult behaviour into their play. Dressing up in daddys och grandpas shoes is so fun or to borrow grandmas purse and pretend to be a lady or mummys lipstick. Why should it be wrong to spray on just a little perfume in such a play? maybe, you should wait until the kid asks for it, but as long as it is a part of having fun, why´s that wrong?

A kid from a home with perfume interested parents would of course become more curious then a kid from a home with vefry sparse use of perfume. If you´re afraid of your childrens delicate skin to get hurt, you can spray on the sweater.

Older kids understands the connection between perfume and smelling good. And make up and looking better. Pre-teens like to own a bottle of -celeb- scent, to seem more adult. during this phase, perfumes can be used to tell whom hot and not. "All" the girls should have their own purse filled with make up and a bottle of perfume. Those who don´t are considered immature or geeky.

My 13 year old is quite indoctrinated when it comes to perfume. She is quite self acting when it comes to perfumes now and have some favorites. Vanilla seem to be popular and she loves anything from Jessica Simpson´s Fancy to Indult´s Tihota. I let her try most of my scents, but try to keep her away from the most animalic, erotic one´s. Maybe a girl in her age should just be contempt with having a bottle of Fancy and not drewling over Tihota? Anyway, I´m looking forward to follow her perfume development. But maybe she´ll revolt at 15 and start to refuse wearing any perfume at all?

When, if at all is it OK to let your kid use perfume? And which fragrances are OK to use? Is it cool to let my 13 year old borrow my Lolita Lempicka but not Frederic Malle or serge Lutens? When did you start use perfume regularly? I strarted to have "Date" cologne spray during pree-teens, most of the girl in my class prefered the blue version, while I loved the red one with a Russian name like Nadia.

Pic: Gustav Klimt

Frazer Parfum - Chapter 5, swiss stone

Stones are in different from animals and some plants (especially trees) hard to get any contact with. Even with a small hamster people experience it´s possible to have some contact, I even experienced I had some contact with my fishes. And with some trees and my most loved plants and don´t get me started with "Burre" my firtree...

And those of us that have had (or have) a dearly beloved pet, who among us haven´t at least once though "Oh, if only you could talk". And tests have shown that plants like it better if they´re living in a home where someone talk to them. But stones, so hard to make any sort of contact with! If they where human they would be autistic all of them, and I mean really, really severe autistic!

And yet, imagine if stones could talk. What haven´t the smallest pebble been trough during it´s million and millions years of existance? And that smooth, beautiful stone you bring home after your vacation to the Mediterrean? And the old stone walls running across the landscape (at least here in Sweden), the result of many long hours hard work. And boulder ridges and glacial erratics and the lake stones of Loch Ness!? Oh well, I know I began to sound quite dopey now, but still, if stones could talk I´m sure they have a lot more interesting things to tell you then your average hamster....

Frazer Parfum chapter 5 swiss stone is a fragrance about stone. Among the nine scents this is the coldest and maybe also -at least to me- the most austere. If corsica everlasting is adventures close to a sunwarmth Mediterrean, swiss stone is adventures in much colder surroundings. Yeah, like in Switzerland obviously. But I don´t have to go all the way to Switzerland (even though it´s nice there and I would love to go there again) to recognise this scent. To me it smells like the nature just outside my house.

swiss stone is the scent of an autumn walk through the forrest in moist, but not yet rainy weather. And it´s also a walk through late autumn, most leaves have fell off the trees. Swiss stone starts of with a sharp almost piercing note, but just for a few seconds there after comes aromatic, haylike and wet notes. There is also something cooling, like mint. And then, there it is, the smell of stones, mineral, some iron, a dense, cold and strangely singing note. This is like the scent of the old stone wall close to Eriksbergs cottage. A stone wall covered by moss, with big old trees around and yellow grass and open soil.

Swiss stone feels lika a withdrawn, slightly melancolic scent. Bittersweet, emotional and as made to wear while you´re writing some beautiful poetry. Swiss stone also evoke almost meditative feelings, it´s a scent for peace and quiet and inner travels. Melancolic, yes, but stikll in perfect harmony and balance.

Swiss stone can be worn by both women and men and have good lasting power and good sillage. Just like corsica everlasting, swiss stone can be a bit challenging, a fragarnce that want´s to be noticed while you wear it. And of course, you wouldn´t forget about since it has a strong precense and take it´s place more then well.

Swiss stone is a fragarnce that would be very suitable for someone mysterious, a little withdrawn but very interesting. This is a scent for someone that prefers to be uniqe not to blend in with the crowd.

pic: geograph.org.uk

Frazer Parfum - Chapter 4, corsica everlasting

Among the nine fragrances from Fraer Parfum, corsica everlasting is perhaps the wildest, the most genuine and the most adventurous. I write perhaps, since there is -at least- one other that also would fit that description really good. Anyway, corsica everlasting is a really unique, wild and genuine scent.

All the scents from Frazer parfum shows a surprising complexity and of course corsica everlasting also does. In the opening I can sense both late summer dry medditerrean fields as well as some juicy alsmot berrylike notes, honeyed sweetness and an aromatic tobacco like note, I can also smell the vague currylike note from immortelle (everlasting flower), but it´s very soft and never becomes foody or to spicy. It´s rather make a balsamic backdrop for the other notes to rest upon.

Corsica everlasting is a fragrance of sunburned mountains but still with some salty seabreaze in the air, it´s a scent of adventures, of wilderness and maybe, meybe all the way in the remote heart of the scent you can belive to meet some freedom fighters around a camp fire... i get a most genuin feeling from corsica everlasting which makes it comparable to Hindu Kush, Nasomatto´s Black Afgano and DS & Durga´s Beartrapper. Corsica everlasting takes me on an olfactory trip to places I have never visit and probably never will visit.

This of course make corsica everlasting a little more demanding to wear then the earlier three I wrote about, this is a fragarance that want´s some engagement from it´s wearer. During base note, corsica everalsting, gets smother and softer though, the wild notes are getting tamed and become soft and serene, like if the sun slowly set upon the heath of the day. In the drydown I can smell some leathery elements as well as the honey note which contributes with a soft sweetness. There is aromatic but also powdery elements during this phase. The powdery note feels more like sandy then common powdery.

Corsica everlasting is suitable on both men and women. It has good lasting power and medium sillage. A fragrance for adventures, within or for real.

Pic: everlasting flowers, flickr

Frazer Parfum - Chapter 3, coffee & orange blossom

Usually people don´t care so much about the small white coffe flowers, since it´s the coffee beans that matters on the coffee bush. When I wear a drop or two of frazer parfum Chapter 3, coffe & orange blossom I belive this is how the small coffe blossoms should smell, but for real I have no idea how they smell or even IF they smell at all...

Coffe & orange blossom is possibly the one among the nine scents from Frazer Parfum that smells the absolute goodest. Oh, it´s so soft and caressing, yet aromatic, airy, creamy and complex. In the opening I think lavender is domnating, but it´s a warm, soft and gorgeous kind of lavender. Soon thereafter the coffee shows up, soft, with some sweet elements and roasted goodness, slowly mixing up with some juicy orange and eventually some creamy orange blossom.

Coffee note can behave a bit boring on me, some times it tend to dominate the scent totally and other times it get totally soaked up by my skin within a few minutes and dissapears. In coffe & orange blossom non of it happens. The coffe note is soft and creamy, but also still there, mingling with the orange blossom creating a scent that -in my imagination- is like a genuin scent of coffee blossom.

Also the scent of orange blossom can be quite volatile, and I like to think about orange blossom as a scent of summer. Coffe & orange blossom isn´t an exception, it captures a small piece of a perfect summer day, but a perfect summer day in much warmer climate then Sweden or even south of Europe.

Coffe & orange blossom isn´t as exciting or challenging as the toher two from Frazer parfum that I´ve wrote about, but it is one of the most comfortable scents I´ve tried. Totally comfy that´s coffe & orange blossom. It´s so soft, so smoth, so caressing and adorable I even forget about the fact that it´s ice cold january outside my door. At the same time it smells so good, so cherful and happy that it never gets boring.

There is however one let down with coffe & orange blossom. It hasn´t got as good lasting power as the other from Frazer Parfum. Maybe, this is because it´s also starts off much more softer and skin close. Since it smells so amazingly good I gets kind of desperate every time I notice it´s about to dissapear, I don´t want to be without it at all...

Yet, it has that in common with other scents that captures the smell of a perfect summerday, wonderful is truly short.

Pic: coffee flower, chiangmai.com

Frazer Parfum - Chapter 2, narcisse & ylang

To write about and evaluate Frazer Parfums nine different scents is a little like being mother to a big bunch of kids. All the children are different from each other, but at the same time they share a family resemblance. No mother to more then one child could say that she likes one of the children more then the others. Most mothers (and fathers too of course) like all their kids as much, but in a little different ways.

I don´t like Chapter 2, narcisse & ylang, any more or less then nutmeg & jasmine or any of the other fragrances. If I some time in the future would have the -economic- possibilty to buy one fragrances from Frazer Parfum, I would have really big problems deciding which of them to chose...

Chapter 2, narcisse & ylang is as beautiful, well made and lovely as nutmeg & jasmine, but narcisse & ylang is happier, more vivid and more colorful. This is a scent for someone enjoying to dress in bright and clear colors. Narcisse & ylang make me think about beautiful dark women with colorful and exotic clothes like saris, sarongs and festive head pieces in all different kinds of colors, but most of all shades of yellow, orange and goldy.

Narcisse & ylang opens with a burst of warm, but also complex notes. I can detect notes of something buttery, something fruity (very soft like pears, peach and citrus), swirling garlands of golden flowers, smoth spicyness and a little animalic dash.

Just like jasmine, daffodil (narcisse) can have slightly indolic, dirty notes. In this fragrances those notes are accompanied by sweet juicyness from ylang. Narcisse & ylang is a more active fragarnce then jasmine & nutmeg, this is a moodlifting and sherfull energy boost. But as with nutmeg & jasmine, I can´t get enough of it...

While the scents develops it strikes me that it have such a nice, comfy and warm glowing effect. Narcisse & ylang becomes more complex and deeper during basenote. A papery spicyness occurs, a soft woody base brings smoth softness. Also the base is erotic, magnetic and intense, but still manage to be so comfortable. I belive narcisse & ylang is not for the shyest among us.

Narcisse & ylang lasts for about 6 hours and a little goes a long way, this is a potent blend. To waer any of Tammy Frazer´s fragrances makes me feel luxurious, relaxed and very content. Narcisse & ylang is a sparkling, lively and golden little masterpiece.

pic: Daffodil detail, flickr

Frazer Parfum - Chapter 1, nutmeg & jasmine

Here I am with my nose almsot constantly attached to my wrist, which makes it a little hard to write. The start of the new year has been really good, especially when it comes to perfumes. During hte days between Chrsitmas and New Year I´ve got my wonderful samples all the way from South Africa. Samples of Frazer Parfums entire line.

The creator behind Fraer Parfum, Tammy Frazer, is only working with 100% natural and organic raw materials, and guess if she´s good at it? It´s along time since I´ve got so impressed by all the fragrances in a line (Iand with nine different fragrances also), they´re all good enough for a long review. It´s also quite a while ago since I become so impressed of a line of all natural scents. Tammy Frazer´s scents remind me alittle of Italian brand La Via del profumo by Dominique Dubrana/Abdes Salaam the line behind favorites of mina as Hindu Kush and Tasneem.

According to me, Tammy Frazer´s fragrances are at least as good. But if they remind me of La Via del Profumo when it comes to quality, power and beauty, they´re so totally unique in other ways like they have a certain feminine grace an inner strenght and beauty. When I heard of Fraer Parfum I didn´t know much about them, and it was first when I waited for my samples to arrive that I discovered that they are sold in a very special place, namely Roja Dove´s Haute Parfumerie at Harrods. Wow!

Anyway, with Frazer Parfum I have once again encountered perfumes to beautiful to be fully described in words. Also, non of the pics I found to illustrate these scent can make them justice. So no matter what I write about them, there is only one thing that´s for sure, you have to test Frazer Parfums yourself. To be sure you understand me I write that again, Frazer parfum fragrances are a MUST try for any perfumista. That´s just the way it is, and now when you know it I can continue writing...

Chapter 1, nutmeg & jasmine are one of the most complex jasmine fragrances I´ve ever tried. The opening burts of with a high, clear and almost varnish like scent that kinds of burns. This is only during a few seconds then nutmeg & jasmine calms down a little and become a more subdued and warm jasmine note. Or actually, several, both in the opening but also later on it´s like Tammy Frazer somehow manage to add layer on layer on layer of different kind of jasmine absolute and extracts from all sorts of different jasmines. One streak is avout the really pure, high and clear kind of jasmine, another one is more sensual, soft and powdery while yet another is of that heavy, fyll bodied, indolic and animalic kind of jasmine. These different kinds of jasmine scent makes like a bed of softest jasmine petals or a bed of fluffy clouds colored golden in the sunset. I´ll promise I have a hard time to get my nose from my wrist!

Slowly the nutmeg note appears, it brings spicyness and warmth to the fragrance and prevent the jasmine from both being to pure/cold but also from being to indolic/animalic. The nutmeg softens the indolic elements and together they make soft, delicate and very sensual scent. I doubt jasmine can be any better than this, and that´s said about a 100% natural scent with no fizzy aldehydes or other synthetic powerhouses to help it on the way. Just amazing!

In the end of the heart note, the nutmeg is melting in to my skin, while the jasmine continues to blossom and now is showing a velvety soft side strenghten by a little dash of vanilla and some really creamy, caressing and blissful sandalwood. Towards the drydon, nutmeg & jasmine is seamlessly blended making a perfect veil of jasmine, vanilla and sandalwood smelling like a sandalwood tree with jasmine flavor. During base note, nutmeg & jasmine is simple and true, not as complex and shifting as in the opening. This is a jasmine fragrance worthy of an angel.

nutmeg & jasmine has good lasting power (surprisingly good, about 6 hours!), it´s strong and with a good sillage. One single drop on my wrist is enough for several hours filed with perfumed enjoyment. Also I have no idea how much they charge for a bottle, but whatever, it might be worth it! Also they offer a solid perfume in wonderful handcarved little wooden boxes, I think they can be very much worth the price.

More information about the wonderful world of Frazer Parfum you can find here:

http://www.frazerparfum.com/

Pic: White jasmine, flickr